THE SELECTED ESSAYS OF GORE VIDAL - Rare Pristine Copy of The First Hardcover Edition/First Printing: Double-Signed by Gore Vidal And Jay Parini - ONLY SUCH DOUBLE-SIGNED COPY ONLINE

Vidal, Gore (Author) & Parini, Jay (Editor)

ISBN 10: 0385524846 / ISBN 13: 9780385524841

Published by New York City, NY: Doubleday, 2008, 2008

About this Item

1st Printing. Signed. 458 pages. Published in 2008. Retrospective collection of essays. Some of Gore Vidal's greatest essays, gathered in one compact volume. The First Hardcover Edition. Precedes and should not be confused with all other subsequent editions. Published in a small and limited first print run as a hardcover original only. The First Edition is now scarce. Presents "The Selected Essays by Gore Vidal". Edited with an Introductory Essay by Jay Parini. A rich sampling of Gore Vidal's celebrated essays, which individually and collectively represent some of his finest achievements as an American Renaissance Man. While the pieces have appeared in previous collections, all of the latter are now out-of-print and none of them is a "summing-up" volume. It is, in effect if not in intent, the distillation of his humongous "United States" (1995). The most recent essays, in particular, are among Gore Vidal's most controversial pieces, a man-of-letters writing at the end of his powers, more resigned (and wiser for it) than hopeful about the state of things, especially the United States, which he presciently asserts is in irreversible decline as a state, as a nation, and as a global power. Do keep in mind that this assertion was made way before the rise of Donald Trump, whose ascent would have been unimaginable for Gore. Vidal's unsurpassed genius as an aphorist makes him our Montaigne, the greatest essayist America has ever produced. It also leads us to take his effortless one-liners at face value when the whole point of the aphorism is to read between the lines. Gore Vidal died on July 31, 2012 at the age of 86, the last of the great American public intellectual/writers of our time. We live in the Age of Mediocrity, where (nearly) everyone is a critic/blogger/pundit mouthing timid, politically correct opinions. Someday, we will realize what we have irretrievably lost. "The century's finest essayist" (The Spectator). An absolute "must-have" title for Gore Vidal collectors. This copy is very prominently and beautifully signed in black-ink pen on the title page by Gore Vidal. It is signed directly on the page itself, not on a tipped-in page. It is also very prominently and beautifully signed in blue-ink pen on the same page by Jay Parini. This title is a great collection. As far as we know, this is the only such double-signed copy of the First Hardcover Edition/First Printing available online and is in especially fine condition: Clean, crisp, and bright. A rare signed copy thus. Recipient of the National Book Award's Lifetime Achievement Award in 2009 for "Distinguished Contribution To American Letters". One of the greatest writers of the 20th century. A fine copy. (SEE ALSO OTHER GORE VIDAL TITLES IN OUR CATALOG) ISBN 0385524846.

Seller Inventory # 24057

Bibliographic Details

• Title: THE SELECTED ESSAYS OF GORE VIDAL - Rare Pristine Copy of The First Hardcover Edition/First Printing: Double-Signed by Gore Vidal And Jay Parini - ONLY SUCH DOUBLE-SIGNED COPY ONLINE
• Publisher: New York City, NY: Doubleday, 2008
• Publication Date: 2008
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0385524846
• ISBN 13: 9780385524841
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition: 1st Edition.
• Condition: As New
• Dust Jacket Condition: As New
• Signed: Signed by Author

About this title

Synopsis

Gore Vidal—novelist, playwright, critic, screenwriter, memoirist, indefatigable political commentator, and controversialist—is America's premier man of letters. No other living writer brings more sparkling wit, vast learning, indelible personality, and provocative mirth to the job of writing an essay. This long-needed volume comprises some twenty-four of his forays into criticism, reviewing, political commentary, memoir, portraiture, and, occasionally, unfettered score settling. Among them are such classics as "The Top Ten Best-Sellers," “Dawn Powell: The American Writer,” “Theodore Roosevelt: An American Sissy," "Pornography," and "The Second American Revolution.” Edited and introduced by Gore Vidal's literary executor, Jay Parini, it will stand as one of the most enjoyable and durable works from the hand and mind of this vastly accomplished and entertaining immortal of American literature.

About the Author

GORE VIDAL is the author of twenty-three novels, five plays, two memoirs, numerous screenplays and short stories, and well over two hundred essays. His United States: Essays, 1952–1992 received the National Book Award.

JAY PARINI, Vidal's literary executor, is the author of numerous works of fiction, biography, and nonfiction, including The Last Station and Gore Vidal: Writer Against the Grain.